WEDNESDAY COLUMN by USSIJU MEDANER
The year 2020 presented challenges in more ways to governments and citizens the world over more than any other year in the nearest history. From Wuhan, early in the year, the world receives the most woeful gift of a pandemic that shook its very foundation and stagnated every noted national and global sector.
Historically, the 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history, noted to be caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is no universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919 period. About 500 million people, an equivalent of one-third of the world’s population as at the time were infected with this virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be around 50 million globally. The Spanish flu first appeared in early March 1918 and spread quickly through the US Army installation, home to 54,000 troops. By the end of the month, 1,100 troops had been hospitalised and 38 had died after developing pneumonia. The first wave of the virus did not appear to be particularly deadly, with symptoms like high fever and malaise usually lasting only three days. People disregarded the virus, and openly ignored public warnings and guidelines, just as much as we are treated – and still treating – the COVID-19 pandemic. Here in Nigeria, certain people say it is just some form of treatable malaria.
When the Spanish flu first appeared in early 1918, it had all the symptoms of seasonal flu and so it was downplayed. Like we are doing currently in Nigeria, it was downplayed; it will soon go away, it is just like common malaria, local remedies were advertised apparently for profit; and refusal to obey public health guidelines was the hallmark of general behaviour. And truly, a few months into the outbreak, fake calmness descended on the globe and normalcy gradually returned. Here in Nigeria in the case of COVID-19, though the number is still there, though reduced, we have totally become disobedient to guidelines, forcing the government to accept our current realities that we do not care, and while countries like the United Kingdom and others were putting a total ban on festive outings, travelling and gatherings that could become spreaders and super spreaders of the virus, we took to the streets and parks with reckless abandon, mixing and mingling until we became struck by the second wave of the pandemic.
By the summer of 1918, reported cases of the pandemic had dropped remarkably to the point that the world had concluded the virus had run its course and normalcy had returned across the board. Only did they not know, it was the calm that serve as the precursor to the storm; a mutated strain of the virus emerged somewhere in Europe more voracious in its ability to kill a perfectly healthy individual within 24 hours of manifesting the first symptom of the infection
While one of the principal reasons the Spanish flu claimed so many lives in 1918 and again in 1919 was because science as at then did not have the tools to develop a vaccine for the virus, or because they have even misrepresented the cause of the pandemic as being caused by a bacterium nicknamed Pfeiffer’s bacillus; the reason we are been subdued by the coronavirus in 2020 and now running into 2021 is because we literarily choose to disregard the virus, expert advice and government directives, inclusive of jettisoning safety measures and exposing our population to attacks by the virus.
While in a nation such as the USA, the President, despite the full knowledge of the veracity of the virus, took to downplaying it while prioritising the economy and his chances of winning reelection above the health consequences of the pandemic, the Nigeria case is much different. Here, it is the people spearheaded by opposition figures, perennial critics, and enemies of the sitting government that prefer to mislead the citizens as regard the virus and the need to obey national preventive guidelines. The result: we took government narrative, particularly those in government, using the narrative of the pandemic to commit financial crimes against the country; to steal and corruptly enrich themselves. We went as far as to remark that the daily statistics of infection and death from the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) are nothing but daily fabricated lies that must be ignored by the citizens. We even make a joke of what state is topping the league of infection as if it is some form of sport tournament.
How much havoc the COVID-19 pandemic has caused and will further cause the Nigerians and the Nigeria nation would be an academic discussion for probably decades. It is true in war times, government attention and financing is usually purposed to winning the war. The emergence of the pandemic has in the last ten months cost the federal government billions of dollars and more cost is projected in the next two years to meet the continuous cost of awareness creation, acquisition of vaccines and vaccination, management of isolation and treatment centers and maintenance of healthcare providers. This is at the same time that the restrictions, occasioned by the global fear and control of the pandemic, has imposed on specific international trades which has seriously impaired Nigeria’s income.
Global lockdown in 2020 naturally disrupted demands for petroleum finished products and consequently the international price of crude. When we thought we were recovering from the terrible oil prices of the 2016 all through 2019, we suffered a much deeper hit on the national incomes that stressed the government capacity to sustain its allocated spending for the year; it almost became impossible to meet salaries obligation as the year 2020 came to an end for reason that include the strain on the budgeted national income.
Increase in prices of virtually everything ranging from staples to consumables, and every other market goods has imposed more weight on Nigerians than at any other time in history. It becomes increasingly impossible for the citizens to sustain their livelihoods; why, because the pandemic has literally imposed constraints on efficient operation of every sector of the economy. Farming, transportation, and even industrial production are all significantly thwarted.
Staying over four straight months at home under lockdown has caused untold hardship to the self-employed and small businesses owners who had no option but to expend their business capital on sustaining not only their immediate families but a chain of dependants who totally lost sources of survival during the lockdown. Now, with lifting of lockdown amidst worries on a possible reenactment of a second lockdown in the wake of the second wave of the pandemic, businesses are struggling without capital and increased market prices of commodities. The impact on households is daily becoming unbearable and translating to increasing attacks on the government for lack of proper understanding of the causative factors of the hardship they are subjected to.
It was expected that our nation would never again be caught off guard in its proactive response to all future similar contagions no matter the veracity. However, the global response to COVID-19 shows that we did not learn much from the experiences of the past. This we should not take into the future after witnessing firsthand what pandemics are capable of doing to global survival on all fronts. At the end of the 1918 pandemic, about 500,000 Nigerians, out of a population of 18 millions, died in less than six months, with about 70 percent of the population stricken by the virus. About 3 percent fatality of the 1918 would mean a little above six million of our population in the current day if we fail to respond as expected to the pandemic.
Now that a ray of hope is appearing, in a timely developed vaccine for the virus, a secondary and dangerous issue is developing; one that can make a mess of all other developments and medical gains of the past nine months. Out of the blue, the conspiracy of vaccine with motives to depopulate the globe has emerged and began spreading like wildfire; not limited to Nigeria, doubts of the ability of medical science to serve as a force for good and people’s faith in government’s ability have more than any other given reasons been responsible for the great majority of hesitation across the globe among citizens to freely present themselves to vaccination. Unfortunately, information is not readily forthcoming to assuage the fears of the people, rather, forces that could have become useful to leading the people out for vaccination, such as religious forces and the authority vested on clergies have preferred to take advantage of the scenario to assume a little more relevance among the people by exaggerating and building myths and fallacies around the COVID-19 vaccination.
Across Europe, the Americas, mostly in the USA and here in Africa, the resistance to the vaccination, both quiet and spoken, is already a force challenging governments’ efforts to subdue the deadly virus. With the emergence of more potent strains of the virus and the clear indication that the world has not yet seen an end of the pandemic, it stands as at now that the only weapon left for our survival is mass vaccination and then continue research work into the nature of the specifics strains of the coronavirus. This has become more difficult for government and medical interference globally to achieve, citizens are becoming more unwilling to submit to vaccination and the government needs to do more to turn the tide before the virus gets a better hold of us.
We have heard and seen clergies, long before now, who have sown seeds of doubts concerning the safety of the expected COVID-19 vaccines long before they become a reality. Alongside the 5G network conspiracy theories, the unfounded conspiracy of an engineered vaccine to reduce the world population rather than taking care of the coronavirus, has taken the center stage; coming from individuals and groups that otherwise ought to be shouldered with the responsibility of making sure people readily turn out for the vaccination. We are at a point in the fight when mass reorientation of the citizens is far more important than getting and administering the vaccines. What must be done and when it must be done to get Nigerians to turn out to get vaccinated once the vaccines reach our shores should preoccupy the minds of the nation’s decision- makers at the moment.
The US faced the same predicament; the 5G conspiracy and the ‘Bill Gates population cleansing agenda’ was massively sold to the Americans just as it is here in Nigeria; personal and groups’ decisions to evade vaccination were on the rise. A number of churches were constantly drumming the very need to reject the vaccine to their members while so many others were creating a fearful link between the duo of the vaccine, 5G network and the operations of the supposed coming Antichrist. There are video clips of signages in the US that were against the vaccination and portraying ongoing response as a farce; but despite the opposition and resistance, today, Americans are enrolling for vaccination and are getting vaccinated as per availability. What changed? The proactive response of leaders who recognised the need to reverse the narrative in the interest of the country. Prominent American leaders have submitted themselves to televised vaccination to assuage their citizens as well as to promote the safety and the necessity of the national COVID-19 vaccination program.
Here in Nigeria, we have not seen specific government programs to turn out the citizens for vaccination. The Nigeria Center for Diseases Control has done well managing the pandemic but has not lived up to the same commendation in planning for a successful vaccination campaign in the country. While the conspiracy theories are allowed to flourish and propagate at will, there have not been any response from designated government agencies like the National orientation Agency (NOA) or even either the government controlled media houses or their private counterparts. The state governments have been equally quiet and unbothered by the possible consequences of the growing deviants to the vaccination; the churches have mostly taken the stance of spiritualising the program and in most cases found a way to persuade loyal members to stay away. And in our characteristic manner as citizens, we ask less questions and obey more; we are not bothered to remind these elements of the society who were so sure the coming vaccines are designed to harm our nation and population, that they prescribed the same rhetoric years ago when the polio vaccine was brought to us; they claimed then it was to render the children impotent and reduce the population of the continent in the future. Today, we are celebrating our polio free status and those children are now parents themselves; fertile and strong.
Yes, we have the general problem of media abuse, for propagating lies, and conspiracy theories causing the nation untold harms by the same. On the trail of the harms are the increasing polarisation of the country along all feasible differences, the erupted ENDSARS protest and the ensuing destructions and the unending consequences of other magnitudes from national errors or inaction; yet it seems right that we should at least for once, value our lives and jettison rhetoric and actions that may jeopardise not only our health as the pandemic is doing but also our individual, private and national economic sectors.
This should be the time, the appropriate time we jettison all personal and non-profitable agendas for the sake of our collective survival. This is the time for regional associations to take up the challenge and task of opening up the people to the need for and the safety of the vaccine. This is the time for the religious communities to wake up to their moral responsibilities and to begin sensitising their members to make themselves available for vaccination. This is the time for government-owned ministries of information, the National Orientation Agencies, the media houses, to prioritise preparing the minds of the people for the upcoming vaccines and vaccination programs. The time to dispel all the lies and unfounded conspiracies that have already altered citizens’ decisions regarding the vaccines.
Normalcy from the pandemic would begin from the moment we defeat the virus; the day we all get vaccinated and protected against the virus or the day the world discovers a concise treatment drug for the virus. For now, we can only do with what is readily feasible, the vaccine. It is all our responsibility to make that happen and happen fast.
GOD BLESS THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA!
